


3/3

by euhemeria



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, and a bit of bilingual punning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 23:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15129629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euhemeria/pseuds/euhemeria
Summary: Nothing is much of anything without its roots.  Take her own: her mother tongue is hermother’stongue.  Her word for her mother is ummi, is root أ م م, or foundation—her mother, her root, is herself rooted in a foundation.Motheris so limiting, because Ana has always been more than Fareeha’s mother, has been the very pattern by which Fareeha has built herself, has been her foundation in more ways than one; only the root can capture that.Or,Musings on identity, thinking bilingually, and finding one’s place in the world.





	3/3

**Author's Note:**

> this was my fic for the rocket queen zine! i was super excited to participate because fareeha is 100% the reason i bought ovw to begin with, lol

For a long time, language was a source of pain for Fareeha—a divide in her life, English and Arabic, her father and her mother, Canada and Egypt.  Language was a dividing point, was something which made her two halves from one whole, herself and _not_.  Even when she tried to use it to her advantage, to find names for herself, who and what she was, it served only to restrict her, to reduce her to something she would never truly be.  This is to say nothing of the ways her mother used it against her.

But now, as an adult, Fareeha appreciates language, feels comfort when her mouth forms familiar shapes, feels pride when she manages as clever pun, feels fulfilled when her words are of help to others.  The trouble before was that she thought words alone were enough to contain a thing—words alone, taken out of context, removed from their roots.

Nothing is much of anything without its roots.  Take her own: her mother tongue is her _mother_ ’s tongue.  Her word for her mother is ummi, is root **أ م م** , or foundation—her mother, her root, is herself rooted in a foundation.  _Mother_ is so limiting, because Ana has always been more than Fareeha’s mother, has been the very pattern by which Fareeha has built herself, has been her foundation in more ways than one; only the root can capture that.

Thinking about the roots of words is usually freeing—they are often something more than just themselves.

Sometimes, however, that is not the case.  Dead is **م و ت** , no matter how much she wants it to change (two roots form two words, and from them a sentence, one can fill in the rest: **م و ت+  أ م م** ), and the same can be said of regret **ن د م**.

No matter what one does, dead is dead and regrets are regrets.

Or so Fareeha thinks, in the months after her mother’s death.

Who could blame her?

Who has no regrets?

Her mother had regrets, certainly, and when she spoke of regret it was always **ن د م** , so this is the way Fareeha learns it, because for so much of her childhood she lived in Canada and learned only what her mother taught; **ن د م** , absolute.

After her mother dies, however, she begins working for Helix and hears more and more _ana etsarraynt,_ from Saleh.  She never appreciates it when he says it, meaning as it does that Saleh has invariably made a mistake _again_ , but with time, she comes to appreciate what it means—not literally, but for her.

A new word for regret, and with it, a new root, **س ر ع** —swiftness, or haste.

To say she regrets with **س ر ع** rather than **ن د م** changes everything, for there are things she does not regret happening, but regrets instead their passing, the swiftness which marked their end.

Here is something her father might regret ( **ن د م** ) for her—that despite his wishes, despite her mother’s, Fareeha followed down the path her surname set before her.  Amari, root **ق م ر** , does not mean soldier, means _moon_ , but the root has nothing to do with her family’s legacy, has nothing to do with the legacy that she is heir to.  Perhaps that is why her father thought it safe to let her have her mother’s name; to be an Amari is not necessarily to be a soldier, not at the root of the word, but nonetheless that is what it means to her.  After all, when others hear her name what they think of is not the moon, is her mother, war hero, is the legacy her family has built defending her country.  How could she, therefore, have imagined herself any differently, how can she now?

But she does regret ( **س ر ع** ) the way in which she brushed off her father’s worries for her, how easily she dismissed his concerns.  In her haste to prove herself, to live up to her mother’s family’s name, she must have seemed as if her father did not matter to her, as if his legacy of service—civil, not military—was not equally important when informing her perceptions of her world, her self.  If she could live her life over again, Fareeha would not decide against enlisting, would not fail to continue the legacy set before her, but she might not disregard the worries of her father so swiftly, would at least listen to him before pursuing her own path, so that he might know that he, too, matters, that his words do hold weight, even if he cannot here dissuade her.

Here is something her mother might regret ( **ن د م** ), if she could: that the two of them fought.  Perhaps her mother might regret more than that, but who can say?  Not Ana, not anymore, and when she was living—when she was living she had little enough to say to Fareeha, in her final years.  By the time of her death, the two of them had not spoken in more than half a decade, had been unwilling to, following their final fight, and although she cannot know, Fareeha suspects that her mother would regret that much, at least, would regret that she died without ever saying goodbye, that in her stubbornness she forced the two of them apart.  That was her mother’s decision, to say that _If you go, you cannot come back here_ , and not Fareeha’s, and so she cannot say that _she_ regrets it.

But she does regret ( **س ر ع** ) that she so readily accepted those words, that she just wanted the fighting to be _over with_ and quickly, and did not try to speak again.  Given another chance, Fareeha would still fight with her mother, for she still believes that she is right, that she does more good as a soldier than she could do elsewhere, that she was born to be a protector—but she would not surrender so swiftly, when her mother tells her not to return, would, on one of the many nights her hands hovered at the phone, actually call, would try to see if her mother, like she, were struggling with the separation.  Then, things might not have been left so maddeningly unresolved, when her mother died.

Here is something her heroes might regret ( **ن د م** ), that when they spoke to her about their exploits, their battles, their feats, they furthered her resolve to pursue the path which ended in such a separation.  Certainly, Reinhardt, of all people, would not regret the telling of the stories themselves, but he has always cared a great deal for family—his own, and others’—and he told her, when last they saw each other, that it saddens him still what happened between she and her mother, that he wishes he might have stopped it, somehow, or at the very least saved Ana, have bought the two of them time to reconcile.  She wishes he did not feel so, for whatever part Reinhardt’s tales played in leading her to where she is now, this is where she is meant to be, what she is meant to do; she cannot imagine things would have ended any differently, even if he had never told them to her. 

But she does regret ( **س ر ع** ) that she did not hear the other story, beneath his words, one of pain and of loss.  For every heroic sacrifice, there was a death.  In stories it did not matter, for those people were nameless, faceless, were made only to be heroes—they were not _her mother._ She wishes, when she had listened to him, she had taken more note of those deaths, just how many there were, and not foolishly believed that because her mother was in the company of heroes she was _safe._ Then, Fareeha might have realized how dangerous a profession theirs is.

Of course, for all the things she might regret, **ن د م** or **س ر ع** , nothing could change her decision to be here today.  No number of regrets can change that she is happy where she is, even now.

After all, Fareeha has only one meaning, root **ف ر ح**.  Even when she transforms herself into a hero, she keeps the root, becoming Pharah, for this is something about herself that is immutable.  **ف ر ح** , the root of what her mother named her, to accompany Amari, a legacy of soldiers, **ف ر ح** , fā-rā-ḥā, **ف ر ح** , exultant, rejoicing, _happy_ , with whom and where she is.

Whatever else she may become, whatever else may happen in her life, nothing can take from her her root.

**Author's Note:**

> it was a nice little challenge for myself to incorporate my love for the intertwined structure and meaning of arabic words in a way that non-speakers would easily pick up, so hopefully i succeeded, lol
> 
> lmk ur thoughts!! <3


End file.
